by After breakfast at the hotel, supplied free of charge – tea, coffee, bread, jam, and bananas. Sinh Cafe tours- are successful – obvious from the hordes of people waiting for tours at their offices. We left our big packs at hotel 64. Very enjoyable traveling without them, Hope the packs are still there when we return.
On the bus for a few hours for Mekong Delta – 2 day trip. Onto a long tail boat for a tour through the canals, before lunch break – at the worst restaurant – where there were 4 large pythons and following a long, long, long wait – the second’s boat motor had broken down. A short walk through the rain forest, nothing special (interestingly we saw melaleuca, paperbarks and lotus flowers) before back on the boat for another 2-hour trip back to the bus. On the way in the boats we saw many kids playing in the freshwater of the Mekong Delta, ducks being fed, farmed, plucked, and…..many many boats, long-tail motors used to pump water for irrigation by putting a big pipe up close to the propeller.
On this boat we received an unexpected present for the dry season- after sweltering in the 35-degree heat, an afternoon thunderstorm broke literally on us. with little protection, we were all soaked.
After another 2 hours, we arrived in Cần Thơ – the capital of SE Vietnam, and our resting place for the night.
During the day we had crossed the north and south arms of the Mekong River, by boat then ferry – a very large river, and saw the new suspension bridge being built by Australia as a present to Vietnam.
Dinner on the waterfront at Cần Thơ. I ordered snake for dinner, Cooked in a light curry with prawn crackers and peanuts – quite nice, but not so obviously snake – could have been squid. Also tasted snake wine – high alcohol content and quite herby – almost cinnamon and nutmeg but not at all difficult to describe -apparently great for the male libido.
Moved on to Hot chocolate and tea and ice cream at NamBo-another restaurant further down the waterfront – wished we had eaten here. Dined with Beth and David (NZ) both teaching English in Japan- but seem to be close…….snake wine?
